Thursday, March 9, 2017

The NHL's expansion list debacle, and what it can tells us about a league gone wrong

The NHL did something this week, so it goes without saying that they found a way to make their fans angry.

In this case, the “something” was the annual GM’s meetings. This is the time of year when all of the league’s general managers, fresh off of not doing all that much at the trade deadline, get together to talk about the state of the game. The meetings started off as usual – with lots of interesting ideas being offered as to how things could be improved. Then they ended off as usual – with the decision to change virtually nothing.

But it was something that happened in between that got the most attention, at least among fans who still pay attention to this stuff. And you get the feeling that the league didn’t intend for it to be that big of a deal. On Wednesday, word got out that during a discussion on expansion, the league had asked the GMs whether each team’s protected list should be made public. No, the GMs replied, they’d “prefer” to keep everything secret.

That’s right. For the first time since 2000, the league will be holding an expansion draft. And the league’s GMs want you to know as little as possible about the whole thing.

This would be, to put it mildly, idiotic.

>> Read the full post at Sportsnet




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